The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami

cw: suicide ideation, mental illness, anhedonia, depression (at least not self harming again tho (not for the moment lol haha))

I don’t quite understand what this book is, as a like physical object. Like I don’t fucking know if it like I don’t fucking know if if exists outside of a small print run in this weird Canadian edition

There’s like nothing on this book to indicate that The Strange Library was previously published in like a like like a like a collection of stories or something, like there’s nothing to say when it was originally published in Japanese (Haruki Murakami – you may of have off of heard of him – is a Japanese writer who writes in Japanese and what he writes about when he writes is usually usually usually yeah) or if it even was, or if it was published in Japanese looking like this weird thing, this strange this, this non-normal book object with these weird fucking flappy flap flaps on the fucking front and the like fucking typeface is fucking massive with big fucking kerning and like triple line spacing or whatever and all these fucking these fucking all these fucking like fucking pictures some of which are like photos of like drawings or illustrations pr like what what fucking like and some of some of fucking some of these things are like illustrations like CGI or whatever and some near the end are like like like weird like pictures with like drawings on like photos or illustrations and like yeah it’s weird and the things like fucking like sometimes are like fucking illustrating the text like as in like fucking depicting the fucking the fucking the fucking narrative or characters or whatever and sometimes like the pictures are like fucking I dunno like they’re like I don’t fucking know like yeah they’re just like more abstract no not that they’re like fucking fucking fucking they’re like fucking illustrative of like the vibe or whatever of the story, but they maybe they’re not like and the whole thing is maybe like a bit like orientalist or whatever and some of the images are just like stereo like fucking stereo fucking stereotypical images of like Japan or maybe they’re not cuz I don’t fucking know what Japan looks like I’ve never fucking been and I’ll probably never fucking go cuz even though I’d fucking like to I’m like too fucking too fucking like too fucking much of a fucking loser to ever fucking go anywhere or fucking do anything I’d like ever fucking want to fucking to I’ll like I think I’ll like I think I dunno dunno I don’t know yeah sorry so yeah I don’t know what the fucking pictures are about and why the book has these weird fucking flaps on the front flip flop flap flap flap flap I’d like to fucking die haha haha haha I read this fucking book

So it’s like a fucking short story more than even like a fucking novella maybe it’s a fucking novelette, I don’t know and like like like it’s the story of like this teenage boy who like goes to a library to read about taxation in the Ottoman Empire and gets like fucking imprisoned in like the fucking the fucking the fucking basement prison of the library where there’s like this fucking creepy little fucking guy who kidnaps people and makes them like study loads in this like library fucking prison and then he literally eats their brains cuz he’s a cannibal and and and there’s like a ghost who’s like a sexy lady and a man dressed totally as a sheep (but who is a man and not a sheep) who I think I remember from like Murakami story or novel or something I read like a thousand years ago or whatever, but anyway this sexy ghost and the sheep-man (who is a man and not a sheep) help the teenage boy to escape the library and the sexy ghost like turns into a bird and when they get out the sheep-man runs away and like the teenage boy goes back to his life and his like mother never really noticed he was fucking gone or anything and so I suppose it’s a fucking tragedy right innit it’s like a like a like a fucking story about abandonment more than about imprisonment and it’s about – I chose to take it to be about – how reading and reading and reading is fucking pointless and pathetic and embarrassing and just leaves you alone with just like fucking imaginary fucking friends and even if the imaginary friends are like fucking sexy they’re still fucking imaginary and I don’t want to stop reading books and I don’t want to be fucking miserable and I don’t I don’t I don’t I don’t want to fucking have to fucking feel like every fucking day is a fucking a fucking a fucking a fucking pointless fucking waste anyway I booked off a fucking week off fucking work in November so I can go somewhere then and try and fucking try and fucking try and fucking exist for a minute but then I’ll have to come back fucking dead eyed dead eyed dead eyed to my fucking rotten fuck funk life that’s just drowning drowning drowning I’m a fucking ghost haunting my own fucking life and I’m fucking I’m fucking I’m fucking sick of that but I fucking don’t fucking know how to fucking fucking change that yeah I dunno I dunno I just don’t know I really don’t fucking know

Yeah

Sorry

Here’s a fucking video of this fucking this fucking here’s a fucking video of this weird fucking book so you can fucking see what I’m fucking talking about because I don’t fucking fucking fucking think I’ve been very fucking clear here except fucking making it fucking clear I think I’d be fucking better off not so fucking miserable which means probably not alive I’m so fucking bored of crying I’m so fucking bored of not feeling hope I don’t believe I’ll ever feel better and I’m tired tired tired fucking bored and exhausted by fucking pretending yeah it’s fucking fucking fucking pointless who’s it fucking for because it’s not for fucking me I have to live if I’m not going to die and I don’t know if I fucking have it in me to fucking live and it’s just this this this this nothing, this fucking fucking fucking empty fucking horrorshow hell forever until I treat myself in the way I need and fucking fucking fucking die:

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scott manley hadley aka SOLID BALD live

Here’s a video of me recently performing at the prestigious (it has a Wikipedia page) comedy night, Quantum Leopard. Listen to how much fun the crowd is having. You could have that much fun, too!

Forthcoming gigs include the following – there may/will be others:

18th February 2026, 7.30pm: Laughable, Wanstead Library

26th February 2026: Mirth Control, Bexhill-on-Sea

12th March 2025: BALD PERSONALITY DISORDER 30 MIN WIP at Glasgow International Comedy Festival

26th March 2026, 7.30pm: Comedy @ Cosmic, Plymouth

May 2026: BALD PERSONALITY DISORDER FULL LENGTH WIP at the BRIGHTON FRINGE